Introducing the NHSR Community

Zoë Turner

Who are you?

Before we start what programs do you usually use?

  • Excel
  • SQL
  • PowerBI
  • Tableau
  • Qlik
  • SPSS
  • STATA
  • R
  • Python
  • Something else…

Who is NHS-R Community?

  • Whilst we are called NHS-R we are not just NHS and not just R!
  • Everyone is welcome!
  • We started in 2018 with funding R projects, a conference and training Introduction to R and R Studio
  • We still do training and…

… we have created…

Open source

Everything is in the open (including our mistakes as we learn):

Alexis Rose from Schitt's Creek saying 'Ugh, no I'm trying to learn from my mistakes - before making new ones'

Everything needs documentation

Even a community!

  • Not everything is obvious to a new person…
  • … and a lot is not known even to people who have been involved for a while!
  • We can practice sharing using words before code
  • Following The Turing Way we have the NHS-R way
  • Following The GDS Way we have (currently) a more technical guide Statement on Tools

Health Inequalities

It’s not just code we share, it’s our knowledge on the data we are using:

Health Inqualities book

  • Contributions to these don’t have to be technical or use code
  • The book has two “built in” ways to make comments, using either GitHub or Hypothesis.

It’s all work in progress

Whilst work may be paused is it ever really complete?

What is important to us is contribution, not output

Cartoon sun with a smiling face and a stick with a bag tied at the end over its shoulder, saying "My work here is done"

Senario 1

Creating an SPC (Statistical Process Control chart) for hospital admission data

NHSRdatasets

This R package has publicly available data to use for training.

Use code to create a “temporary table” called sub_set:

NHSRplotthedots

Using this SPC package which creates plots using the NHSE/I ‘Making Data Count’ rules and look:

Scenario 2

Hospital episodes can overlap or have gaps which can result in under or over counting

Create some data using code

Using data created in code this time:

NHSRepisodes

This package has two functions, one adds the episode number to the data the other reduces the data to just one one line:

Returning just one line

A learning environment

NHS-R Community is a learning environment:

  • we have volunteers who develop and offer training
  • and we have technical spaces where you can practice
  • supported by a community in Slack to ask questions and connect with people
  • and if you make a mistake it will get lost amongst all of ours

Final reminder

We are not just the NHS and not just R

We share a common interest in health and care, data science tools and to quote the NHS-R way

We value the participation of every member of our community and want to ensure that every contributor has an enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

Any questions?